As a fine-art photographer for the past nineteen years I've come up against my fair share of
technological challenges in photography. The shift from film to digital was monumental!
In this blog I'd like to share with you what I've found to be some of the most useful PhotoShop
techniques when working with my digital images. I hope that they will make your life a bit easier
as you work with your images. Have fun!

Welcome to my "Photoshop Tips for Photographers" Blog

Please Note: These tips have been prepared using Photoshop CS3.

Monday, February 15, 2010

Week 7 - Lighting Effect using a Curves Adjustment Layer

This simple lighting effect can be created in just a couple of easy steps.

Here is the original image that we will work on today.

First, click on the Create a New Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Add a Curves Adjustment Layer. Click on the top right point of the curve and drag it down the right side until you reach an Output number of around 70 or 80.


Second, choose a very large soft Brush (press B on your keyboard to select a brush). Be sure that your Foreground is set to black. Set the Opacity of the brush to 60%. Click once on the image where you would like to add your lighting. For instance, I made my brush large enough to cover the horses' eye and face and clicked there. Then lower your brush opacity to around 20%, move your brush tool to another spot, somewhere away from the first lighting effect, and click again. Keep clicking until you have the amount of light that you'd like. I clicked four times with the 20% brush after my first click with the 60% brush.

Here's the final image after adding the Curves Adjustment Layer and the five clicks with a large soft brush. Have fun!

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